


What Might Have Been

by kitrinlu



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 17:44:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/114983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitrinlu/pseuds/kitrinlu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeyne thinks of Robb, and what might have been</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Might Have Been

He would have been a wonderful father, Jeyne knows. Sure as she knows the sun will rise on the morrow, she knows that Robb would have made a wonderful father. She's never seen him with children, but she has heard him talk of his brothers and his own father, and she knows.  
  
She no longer curses her mother for denying them this, for stealing the chance for her to have one last thing that remained of him. Her anger has done her no good. It is too late; the deed is done.  
  
She no longer curses herself for trusting, for taking the draught from the hands of the woman she believed had her best interests at heart. Her mother still claims that she did it all for Jeyne and for the family, but Jeyne knows that her true family died with Robb.  
  
She can see them so clearly in her mind's eye - the boys, Bran and Eddard, the girls, Elsbeth and Serra, her favourite girls' names. Robb dandling small Eddard on his knee, telling a tale of the first Starks in Winterfell, while Bran and Elsbeth listen wide-eyed. Herself seated nearby, nursing Serra and stealing glances at Robb when he's not looking. How the firelight shines in his hair, the lines around his eyes when he laughs at Bran's enthusiasm, his smile when Elsbeth snuggles closer to him when she's scared but determined not to show it. The joy in his eyes when she presents him with tiny Serra, when Eddard takes his first steps. The happiness and sadness and fear and pride, and all the things she imagines one feels while raising a child, that they will now never experience together.  
  
Her mother complains that she is distracted, that she doesn't listen, but Jeyne knows different. How can she be expected to pay attention to the outside world when inside she can be happy? So she watches her husband and her children, laughing and loving, in the only way she can. The Others take the outside world; she will be free.


End file.
